Uninstalling LabVIEW 2015 sp1 f13

[instrumento]

Several machines in our lab had LabVIEW 2015, updated up to SP1 f13.  We've long ago hopped to 2018, then to 2022 Q3.

Uninstalling "LabVIEW 2015 SP1 (64-bit) 15.1.46" from the Package Manager seems to work, but somehow "c:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVEW 2015\LabVIEW.exe is still there.

Looking through the uninstall section of the registry I see we still have something called "NI LabVIEW 2015 SP1 f13 (64-bit) 15.1.66'" but this "package" doesn't show up in Package Manager, and if I run "C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\Shared\NIUninstaller\uninst.exe -nonipm", the package is not listed there either.

What is the proper way of clearing this?  (Short of deleting that registry key and the LV2015 directory).

[Bob_Schor]

LabVIEW is a complex (and complicated) set of programs and support files.  Starting with LabVIEW 2017, NIPM became the installer and "uninstaller", but the complexity of multiple installations of LabVIEW and its myriad of support files makes "selective uninstallation" an extremely difficult proposition.

The surest, and by far the safest way to do a partial removal (say, of LabVIEW 2015 SP1 f13) from a PC with LabVIEW 2018 amd 2022 Q3 is the following two-step process:

1. Do a complete removal of LabVIEW, including as a final step, the removal of NIPM.  Reboot.
2. Do a re-installation of the version(s) of LabVIEW that you want to run.  In the "old days" (pre-NIPM), the recommendation (and probably the requirement) was to install the oldest version first.  Since NIPM, the order of installation might be more flexible (I, myself, spent several years trying to install multiple LabVIEW versions from 2015 to 2018, and always failed, until I tried to install them in the order 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 -- I would never have thought to try this except that Marina from Tech Supoort implored me to try it).

I also have experience with "forced removal of NI Software" involving "cleaning the Registry".  This led to a PC that was unable to install any version of LabVIEW until I reformatted the C: drive, reinstalled Windows, reinstalled all my other programs and restored my Profile, and then started installing LabVIEW.

Bob Schor

[instrumento]

I'm just going to leave that "package" in there, and wipe the registry entry from the uninstall key.  My expectation would have been for the LV2015 uninstaller to get rid of it, but maybe it wasn't aware of the fxx fixes.  Eventually these machines will get cloned from some other system that never had 2015 on it and that would be the end of it.